Friday, July 27, 2007

Rock show last night

I had a great time last night at the 25th KSBJ Anniversary Show. TobyMac, Israel and New Breed, Mandisa and MercyMe all performed throughout the night. Everyone was excellent. Great show, and somehow the rain held off. Personally, the highlights for me at these shows are always the times of worship.

Thoughts on each act:

Mandisa -- Because of the traffic on 45 North and the line at the ticket counter, I got seated a little late. I should have left earlier to get out there. I saw the last song of her performance, and she came out to sing with TobyMac. She's obviously a great talent. I'll get my ticket online in advance next time.

Israel and New Breed -- I'm biased, Israel is one of the worship leaders at church. Fantastic! This was my favorite part.

TobyMac -- Man, that was off the chain (whatever that means). I wanted to dance, just like the dog in this video, but I kept my composure and just clapped at times.

MercyMe -- Ending the show with them was perfect. Great time of worship. I look forward to the new CD.

On the event of the radio station's 25th anniversary, I thought back to when I started listening to KSBJ. As a freshman in high school, I was really into all the mainstream heavy metal stuff -- and someone turned me on to Stryper's "Yellow and Black Attack" and told me about a show called "The Rock of Love" on KSBJ.

Shortly thereafter, my taste for music expanded and I was listening to the station almost all the time. Remember the Imperials, Randy Stonehill, Petra, Second Chapter of Acts?

One of the most exciting aspects of Christian music in general is how much the production values have improved. Back in the day, you at times felt you were having to compensate for lack of production quality by adding Jesus lyrics. Not any more. Christian music today often offers the same quality and musicianship as the mainstream, and frankly that's the way it should be.

(That's not to disparage the talented musicians in the industry in the early years -- they just didn't have the resources that are available to Christian musicians today).

One of my earliest KSBJ memories was winning a Bible verse memorization kit from the station. It was either in 1984 or 1985, and the station used to have a contest at night where they would read a verse and the first person to call in with the correct location in the Word would win a prize.

I would sit on the floor with a huge concordance, wait for the first words of the verse, press the final number of their phone number, and start frantically looking up the scripture before they answered the phone. I finally won it and rejoiced.